Outreach ​and Engagement Awards

*Nominations are due on February 28, 2023.

The College of Agriculture PK-12 Council's Outreach and Engagement Awards were established to recognize, reward, and celebrate faculty and staff involved in successful outreach and engagement activities and to encourage the improvement and expansion of those activities. Since 2016, there have been 21 excellent faculty and staff recognized for exhibiting tremendous work in the College of Agriculture expanding the pool of students interested in and prepared for, careers in food, agriculture, life, and natural resource sciences.

The PK-12 Council Outreach and Engagement Award Ceremony will be held on April 18th at 4:00 pm EST.  We encourage all award applicants to mark that date on their calendars!

2023 Outreach and Engagement Award Nomination Form

The Excellence Staff & Faculty Emerging/Sustained Outreach and Engagement Impact Awards

The purpose of these awards is to recognize Faculty and Staff in the College of Agriculture who are engaged in outreach and engagement work with PK-12 audiences. A total of four awards ($2,500 each) will be presented in these four categories: Staff Emerging Impact, Faculty Emerging Impact, Staff Sustained Impact, and Faculty Sustained Impact. Teams can apply for any of the award categories.

Emerging Impact awards recognize faculty and staff who have been engaged in PK-12 engagement and outreach for less than 10 years.

Sustained Impact awards are for faculty and staff who have been engaged in PK-12 engagement and outreach for 10 years or more.  

Award funds may be used for equipment, supplies, services, travel, and undergraduate or graduate student effort related to their outreach and engagement activities.

Please see the Outreach and Engagement Impact Award Application for more information.  *Nominations are due on February 28, 2023. Completed nominations must be submitted electronically to Anna Williams (williaak@purdue.edu), Early Outreach Initiatives Coordinator at Purdue College of Agriculture. Outreach and Engagement Award Nomination

The Ignite Program Grant

The Ignite Program Grant aims to spark faculty and staff interest in the College of Agriculture to connect their scholarly efforts to PK-12 audiences. The goal is to encourage faculty and staff to initiate an outreach and engagement project with PK-12 audiences and/or build upon current engagement activities. This award application is to be submitted as a project proposal with a one-year accomplishment update report required. This award will fund a proposed project submitted by a faculty or staff member or a project team.

Applicants of the grant may request up to $2,500 to be awarded. The PK-12 Council award committee will determine the number of grants to issue along with the amount awarded.  A budget must be included in the grant application to indicate how the funds requested will be used. Funds may be used for equipment, supplies, services, travel, and undergraduate or graduate student effort.

Please see the Ignite Program Grant Application for more information.  *Nominations are due on February 28, 2023. Completed nominations must be submitted electronically to Anna Williams (williaak@purdue.edu), Early Outreach Initiatives Coordinator at Purdue College of Agriculture. Outreach and Engagement Award Nomination

Award Recipients

The Purdue College of Agriculture's PK-12 Council selected two winners of the 2022 PK-12 Sustained Outreach and Engagement Impact Awards. Annetta Jones is an Extension Educator at Purdue Extension Porter County, Indiana, and Dr. Colleen Brady is a professor in the Department of Agricultural Sciences Education and Communication. Each recipient received an award to expand and improve their PK-12 Engagement activities in order to increase impact.

2022 Excellence Staff Award

Annetta Jones is an Extension Educator at Purdue Extension Porter County, Indiana. She provides leadership for approximately 50 Extension Educators who implement the Captain Cash program in over 100 classrooms each year. The Captain Cash program is an interactive educational program designed to teach basic financial management skills to third-grade students. In the past five years, over 20,000 third-grade students from around the state of Indiana participated in the in-person Captain Cash program. An additional 807 students participated virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic. Annetta and her colleagues have assessed the youth outcomes of the Captain Cash program. Prior to the program, one-third of the students knew they could earn money as a young entrepreneurs (e.g., lemonade stand). After participating in the program, half of the students knew they could be young entrepreneurs. The program has changed the way youth think about saving money and understanding the process of borrowing money. The partnerships created are impressive, including public, private, parochial, charter, and home-school programs, after-school settings, community centers, boys and girls clubs and the YMCA, summer camps, and temporary shelters for families fleeing domestic violence.

2022 Emerging Faculty Impact Award

Dr. Colleen Brady is a professor in the Department of Agricultural Sciences Education and Communication. She has worked closely with a wide range of youth supporters, including Extension educators in all 92 counties, Indiana State Fair staff and Board members, and volunteers, parents, and families associated with youth programs over the past two decades. Dr. Brady has generated educational curricular content used frequently in 4-H Animal Sciences programming, primarily in the equine area. She also provided programmatic oversight and troubleshooting for approximately 8,000 youth who annually participate in the Indiana State Fair animal shows. Dr. Brady is an innovator in using technologies to broaden access for PK-12 audiences. Recently, Dr. Brady worked with colleagues at other universities to develop the Virtual 4-H Horse Judging and Hippology contests to serve the needs in 10 states, which reached nearly 1,000 youth during the summer of 2020. Dr. Brady has developed assessment tools to document youth outcomes of the National 4-H Horse Roundup and Indiana Youth Career Development Events. She has disseminated research on PK-12 engagement at various conferences and journals. She has published 34 refereed journal articles and 21 abstracts, 14 published conference proceedings, and 67 professional presentations.